


New Skills (and New Friends?)

by vulcanhighblood



Series: Sharingan-Stealer Iruka [3]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Developing Friendships, Fuuinjutsu Master Umino Iruka, Gen, Genin Teams, Geniuses, Kid Umino Iruka, Pre-Canon, Umino Iruka-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-05
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:08:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26298439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vulcanhighblood/pseuds/vulcanhighblood
Summary: Iruka's trying to figure out a new exploding tag modification when Itachi and his friend Shisui drop by to remind him that he's not supposed to experiment unsupervised.  They don't really tell him to stop, though...
Relationships: Uchiha Itachi & Uchiha Shisui, Uchiha Itachi & Umino Iruka, Uchiha Shisui & Umino Iruka
Series: Sharingan-Stealer Iruka [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1899430
Comments: 27
Kudos: 181





	New Skills (and New Friends?)

“Hey Iruka,” someone said from directly behind him.

Iruka yelped, dropping his brush in surprise, a thick smear of ink completely obliterating the past ten minutes’ worth of careful application. He scowled at the now-ruined tag and sighed heavily. “Do you  _ know _ how expensive chakra paper is, Itachi?” he demanded, glancing over his shoulder to direct his dark look in the direction of his (tiny, adorable, also deadly) Genin teammate. 

Itachi stared back at him with a neutral expression. “Do  _ you _ know you’re not supposed to be making experimental tags without Yuki-sensei’s supervision?” 

Iruka sighed heavily.  _ This _ again. “This isn’t necessarily a combat tag, it's a…” he gestured abstractly. “Have you ever accidentally fallen into a patch of poison ivy? Or made the mistake of burning it?” 

Itachi shook his head slowly to indicate he had not personally experienced such a thing. “It itches, right?” 

“It can itch so bad it burns,” Iruka grinned. He did not say that he had originally planned to use the tag as a time-release itching powder - Itachi had no sense of humor, especially when it came to pranks. “But I’m not sure I’d use it in combat.”

“I don’t see why not,” came a different voice, behind Iruka’s  _ other _ shoulder and uncomfortably close to the shell of his ear. “It would make a good distraction, disrupt concentration… you’d need to use it from a distance to be sure it doesn’t incapacitate your allies, obviously. But I could see some definite combat applications.” 

Iruka whirled around to stare into the too-close, faintly amused eyes of a Shinobi he didn't recognize. He had short, tousled black hair with too many cowlicks to ever be properly tamed and wore a simple outfit, a dark shirt with a high collar, a sword sheath strapped to his back. As Iruka’s eyes trailed down he felt a momentary twinge of deja vu, as this guy was wearing practically the same outfit as Itachi. It was more than that, though. His face was soft, too, but with a depth in his dark eyes that made them seem like they might swallow you if you stared for too long.

It took him an embarrassingly long moment to figure out why this person, someone he’d never met, could still look so familiar. 

“I’m Uchiha Shisui,” he said. 

Internally, Iruka congratulated himself on identifying the family resemblance microseconds before the answer was handed to him. Then he felt his heart lurch. Shisui. This was  _ Uchiha Shisui. _ As in,  _ Shisui of the Body Flicker. _ Hadn’t he made Jonin recently? Why was Itachi hanging out with a  _ Jonin? _ (He knew why, and it had to do with the relative skill level of Itachi’s teammates, and the relative skill level of a Jonin like Shisui.) But even more concerning, why was this Jonin giving  _ Iruka  _ the time of day? Usually when Iruka talked to Jonin, it was because he’d irritated them somehow. But Shisui didn’t seem irritated at all. And Iruka was staring, and not answering, and he slowly realized that Shisui was waiting for something. Oh. Right. “Umino Iruka,” Iruka introduced himself. “It’s, uh, nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you too,” Shisui replied, a faint smile curling the sides of his mouth. “Itachi and I were about to spar when he noticed you working over here and insisted on reminding you that you’re supposed to be under supervision when you’re experimenting.” Shisui’s smile widened into a full grin, an expression that took Iruka by surprise, as Itachi’s face almost never made it beyond ‘faintly amused’. “Not much of a rules guy, are you?” Shisui didn’t sound like he was passing judgement with the phrase. Iruka wasn’t used to that. Usually Jonin criticised him for flaunting the rules. Even the Sandaime Hokage tended to give him one of those patented  _ dissapointed _ looks. But Shisui just seemed amused.

Shrugging one shoulder awkwardly, Iruka gestured at the now-ruined tag he’d been trying to make totally from scratch this time. “I didn’t really think this had much combat viability, so I didn’t want to waste Yuki-sensei’s time.” he said. 

Shisui was studying him now, really  _ looking _ at him in a way that made Iruka want to squirm. “If you weren’t planning on using it for combat, what  _ were _ you planning to use it for?” Shisui asked, his grin fading, expression now almost as serious as Itachi’s.

“Pranks?” Itachi piped up from Iruka’s other side. Traitor. 

“I never said that!” Iruka yelped, well aware even as he said it that he was protesting too much. He wasn’t sure why he even bothered. His reputation mostly preceded him at this point. He was rather amazed he’d managed this long without Yuki-sensei figuring it out.

Shisui was giving him a vaguely curious look. “I thought you’d given up on that,” he said, glancing to Itachi before looking back at Iruka.

Iruka blinked twice, feeling uncertain. “...yes…?” he said cautiously, since honestly, he had  _ mostly  _ stopped, aside from booby-trapping his little room in the orphanage. It was hard to keep track of your things in a place full of growing kids with no real adult role models to look up to, and after Iruka had ended up skulking through the entire building one weekend trying to figure out where his mom’s jewelry box had gone, only to find it locked up in  _ the office, _ he’d shifted his attention from he ANBU at Hokage tower to the orphanage. He’d learned that a  _ lot _ of kids had lost valuables that had once belonged to their parents, and he was in the process of figuring out which staff member was responsible so he could… well. He hadn’t  _ exactly _ thought that far ahead, but he also hadn’t figured out who was responsible, yet, either. Five people had access to the office, and Iruka didn’t have a lot of time to stake it out or break in to check for more stolen items, especially since two of the five staff members were former shinobi who would  _ definitely _ notice if things were out of place. He’d left the jewelry box there, though he tried to check a few times a week to make sure it was  _ still _ there. He didn’t want whoever was taking things to know he was onto them, yet. But he was also so afraid that one day he’d pop open the safe only to discover that his mom’s jewelry box was gone for good.

So. Itchy tag, rigged with a tripwire that would set it off if his door was opened. He’d taken to entering and exiting his room through the window, scampering from the hall window nearest to his own room using chakra to hold him to the wall. He’d set some simple wards at the window, too,  _ obviously, _ but he figured if this person was dumb enough to assume that kids weren’t noticing their things going missing, they were probably too stupid to take proper precautions when entering said kids’ rooms. His door right now didn’t actually have the itchy tag, but Irka had rigged a bucket of water overhead, which was a decent stand-in. It hadn’t been set off yet, and Iruka had hoped to finish developing the itch tag today so that his trap would be ready by the time he and his Genin team headed out on their next mission.

Itachi was staring at Iruka with a hint of disapproval. “Who are you bothering now?” he asked in his ‘I’m trying to be sensible about this and you should be too’ tone of voice.

“None of your business,” Iruka shot back with an irritated look, picking up his brush and gazing mournfully at the ruined tag. “I only have four pieces of chakra paper and you just ruined one.”

“You should pay more attention to your surroundings,” Itachi suggested. “Then you wouldn’t get startled so easily.”

Sometimes, Iruka  _ really _ wanted to strangle his teammate. “That’s not the point!” he sighed, rummaging in his pack for another piece of paper. “Weren’t you going sparring, or something?”

“I don’t usually get to watch you create your tags,” Itachi replied. “Is it alright if we stay and watch for a bit, Shisui?”

Iruka gritted his teeth at the fact that apparently  _ Shisui _ warranted asking, but Itachi hadn’t bothered to ask  _ Iruka _ if it was okay to watch him work. 

“If it’s okay with Iruka,” Shisui answered, crouching beside Iruka. “I’d like to watch, too. If you don’t mind.” he smiled as he said this, his dark eyes gazing at him with a warmth Iruka had never seen in Itachi’s gaze.

“Uh,” Iruka said intelligently, feeling his face heat under the intensity of Shisui’s gaze. “Sure, I guess, if you want.” 

Itachi crouched on Iruka’s other side, saying nothing.

Iruka, having already mentally plotted out exactly how to combine the characters on the tag to create a burst of itching powder (it really didn’t seem all that complicated), suddenly found himself panicking. Even when Yuki-sensei watched him, it was usually from a few feet back. He’d never had people sitting  _ right next to him _ while he worked, and he was painfully aware of the presence of not only Itachi, little mister  _ I can do everything perfectly on my first attempt, _ but also this other probably-also-amazing Uchiha shinobi. He took a deep breath. “Right. Okay. Here we go,” he said, more to himself than the two flanking him. He laid his second sheet of chakra paper flat, loading his brush with some ink before carefully laying down the calligraphy, starting at the top left of the tag and carefully scrawling the required text, leaving the center of the tag open to write the most crucial characters - explode, release, itch, and oil. He was trying to make it similar to the effect of when droplets of irritating oil were carried by smoke when you burned poison ivy. 

He kept going until all but the very center of the tag was covered in the proper calligraphy - Yuki-sensei had given him a few books about seals and tag-making so that Iruka didn’t have to keep writing over another person’s work and could just do it all himself. Iruka had noted that the books were from the Konoha Library (which had placed him under a lifelong ban, and he desperately hoped Yuki-sensei never found out he wasn’t allowed access to library materials anymore). He’d also gone and found a few similar books on his own during a visit to the Sarutobi family library, the one library where he still had an open invitation. Iruka had spent the last few weeks practicing his calligraphy with water on his floorboards - it was easy to wipe it dry and start over, and he didn’t have to worry about wasting paper. He’d made a few of his own tags with Yuki-sensei last week, which was why he’d decided he was ready to make the itch tag on his own. He’d used the last of his D-rank mission money to purchase four sheets of chakra paper and some nice ink, and had hoped to use the first page as a trial tag, and the second to make any necessary adjustments, leaving him with two itch tags to use as he pleased. Now he had to hope that everything worked right the first time, or he’d only have one itch tag to use once he’d finished.

He finished the center characters with a careful stroke and set his brush aside, staring down at the tag. “Done,” he announced.

“That’s really impressive,” said Shisui. “How long have you been making tags?”

“Uh,” Iruka frowned. “Modifying or making?”

Shisui’s eyes widened. “You can modify other peoples’ tags, too?”

Itachi had his head cocked slightly and was observing the conversation with apparent interest. 

“Yeah, I didn’t have the tools to make my own at first,” Iruka explained.

“How did you get your chakra to mold with the original maker’s?” Shisui asked.

Iruka shrugged. This was one of those things he had trouble explaining. “You have to listen to the chakra,” he said. “It has a… a resonance, sort of. You have to feel the resonance and try to align with it as much as possible. Find the gaps, and ease your modifications into the gaps.” He shrugged. “Making my own tags is easier in that sense, because I can make it my own from the ground-up. But it also takes more concentration since it’s got to be all mine from the start. No shortcuts.”

Shisui was  _ staring _ at Iruka now. “Are you a chakra sensor?” he asked.

“Oh!” Iruka exclaimed, realising he must not have explained well. “No, not really. Not precisely, anyway. I can’t  _ see _ chakra, but if I focus it’s like I can… feel it. Hear it.” He frowned. “I guess it’s more like feeling it than hearing it. But I can sort of visualize the chakra based on what I’m feeling?” he shrugged. “It’s nothing like what I’ve heard real Sensors can do, but it’s enough for little things like this,” he gestured to the tag. 

Shisui was digging into his pouch, pulling out an exploding tag. “Could you modify this?” he asked, holding it out to Iruka.

Iruka blinked, taking the tag cautiously. “...yeah,” he said, “I  _ could, _ but why?”

“Can I watch?” Shisui asked, his face full of genuine interest. “Please?”

Iruka nodded slowly. “I… guess so…” he said, carefully moving over his still-drying itch tag. “What do you want it to be?”

“Make it one of the flash-bangs,” Itachi piped up. “Those are really useful.”

Shisui glanced at Iruka, a curious expression crossing his face. “Flash-bang?”

“It’s more versatile,” Iruka explained, “Because you can use it like you would a normal exploding tag instead of a canister.”

“Sounds great,” Shisui said, turning to look at the tag. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to watch you modify it into a flash-bang, then.”

Iruka nodded, taking a deep breath. He  _ really _ wasn’t used to such close scrutiny. Closing his eyes briefly, he reached out for the tag, listening for the ‘ping’ of chakra he would hear when his chakra met another chakra. As he reached, he suddenly felt a  _ flare, _ a  _ thrum _ of power bubbling up from his left side and he lost focus, eyes flying open in a gasp. He turned to Shisui, a demand for an explanation halfway across his tongue before his eyes met  _ bright, scarlet red _ irises that turned lazily, three equidistant black dots slowly revolving around a pinpoint of a pupil. On instinct, Iruka  _ flung _ himself backwards, crashing into Itachi before sprawling on the ground. “What the  _ hell?” _

Shisui blinked, his eyes flickering back to the dark color they’d been  _ before _ Iruka closed his eyes. “Are you okay? I didn’t mean to startle you.” 

“What  _ was _ that?” Iruka demanded. “With your eyes? And what was that  _ chakra?” _

“You sensed it?” Shisui asked, looking surprised. “I thought you weren’t a sensor.”

“I’m  _ not, _ but whatever that was was like a bass note in a concert - I could practically feel it in my bones, and I was already trying to figure out this tag, so I was more open to it anyway,” Iruka protested. He really wasn’t a sensor, but apparently Shisui wasn’t convinced, yet. “What were you doing, anyway?”

“I wanted to watch your chakra interact with the chakra traces in the tag,” Shisui explained. “The Sharingan isn’t quite as effective as the Byakugan, but I can still see more with it than if I watched without using it.” 

“Wait, so that was the  _ sharingan?” _ Iruka asked. He’d heard of it, of course, and he supposed it made  _ sense _ that an Uchiha Jonin would have an awakened sharingan, but… “I’ve never seen it before.” 

Shisui scrubbed at the back of his head, a light blush dusting his cheeks as he chuckled nervously. “Oh, it’s not all that special,” he said, which was a total lie, since the Uchiha Clan’s bloodline inheritance was one of the most famous abilities in Konoha. “Lots of us have it these days. I’ve had mine since the war.”

Iruka immediately felt bad, even though he hadn’t really asked about it. He knew, in general terms, that the sharingan was awakened by traumatic experiences. War seemed like the kind of thing that might awaken a  _ lot _ of people’s sharingans. Even for guys who seemed to be basically the same age as Iruka. “I’m sorry,” he said, not sure what else to say.

“Don’t be,” Shisui replied, his voice growing serious. “I’m not. It’s just part of being born in a time of conflict.” He gestured at the tag. “Anyway, is the sharingan going to be a distraction, or do you think you could still modify the tag while I watch?”

Iruka shrugged. “I don’t know, I’ve never done it while someone watched the chakra. Guess there’s only one way to find out.” 

Shisui grinned, his eyes flickering again, returning to that violent shade of red and twirling slowly at Iruka. “Then let’s give it a shot.”

Iruka swallowed hard and shut his eyes. He wasn’t surprised by the sharingan this time, though it was a bit distracting. Still, he’d had a lot of practice modifying tags, so it only took him a little bit longer than usual to sense the  _ twists _ in the tag, to feel out the points where the original tag-maker had left pockets for chakra to fill. Some of them, if filled, would set off an immediate explosion. Iruka’s job was to figure out which pockets  _ wouldn’t _ make it explode, and tie his modifications to those particular spots. After a few more seconds of ‘listening’ to the chakra, making sure he wasn’t missing any notes, Iruka opened his eyes and reached for his brush, dipping it and gazing at the tag. He only needed two spaces for this modification, one for ‘shining’ and one for ‘thunder’. The key here was to make sure his own chakra didn’t impede the original work, to ensure there was no dissonance between his chakra and the chakra of the tag. Inhaling deeply, Iruka set his brush to the paper, focusing intently on the kanji. A few moments later, he moved on to the second character, and then he sat back, setting his brush aside. “Done,” he declared. “It just needs a few minutes to dry.”

Shisui hummed softly beside him, and when Iruka turned to look at him, his eyes had returned to their normal shade. “Interesting,” he said. “I can barely pick up any chakra in the tag at all, and you don’t seem to use all that much when you modify it, either.” He shrugged. “That must be why they’re so effective - it would be pretty useless if a tag had tangible chakra floating off of it at all times. Still,” his eyes met Iruka’s and held, “you must have an incredible level of sensitivity to be able to modify  _ someone else’s tag.” _

Iruka felt his face heating at the straightforward compliment. “Oh, wow, I don’t know about that, I just-”

“He’s right,” Itachi said. “I couldn’t feel anything. It just looked like you were writing, that’s all.”

Iruka blinked twice, even more taken aback by the admission from Itachi. “Wait, really?”

Shooting a vaguely annoyed look in Iruka’s direction, Itachi nodded. “I told you. This is good work.” 

“Incredible work,” Shisui corrected, reaching for the tag, before pausing. “May I?”

“Sure,” Iruka shrugged, then picked up his itchy tag. “I need to go test this now, so -”

“How do you test something like that?” Itachi demanded. “You said it was an irritant.”

“Yeah,” Iruka shrugged. “I brought some skin ointment and an emergency allergy injection in case my throat swells up or something. It’ll be fine.”

“You’re testing it on  _ yourself?” _ Shisui was eyeing him like he was worried for Iruka’s sanity.

“I’ll be  _ fine,” _ Iruka groused. 

“Isn’t there some other way to test it?” Shisui scowled. “Do you usually test these on yourself?”

“I don’t just blow it up in my  _ face,” _ Iruka snapped, “I usually put a barrier around it and then release the barrier after it goes off. So for things like this, where the irritant is supposed to be airborne, I just hold my breath and shut my eyes and walk through the drifting smoke.” He hadn’t actually made a tag with an aerosolized irritant before, but he had made the stink-tag and the sleeping gas, which seemed close enough. He’d been able to live with the effects of both the testing, and the eventual pranks he’d used them for, so he figured he’d be fine with this one too.

Shisui was still frowning. “Won’t you be uncomfortable?”

Iruka shrugged. “I’m going to wash it off after this. If it doesn’t come off I just won’t sleep in the orphanage tonight and try to get it off again tomorrow.”

“I think you should have asked Yuki-sensei to supervise,” Itachi pointed out. “I don’t think he would let you do this.”

“Why do you think I did this myself?” Iruka snapped irritably, glaring at Itachi. “It’s  _ fine. _ I’ve done this plenty of times before.”

“Does that mean that all of the times you pranked me in the Academy, you’d also tested them on yourself?” Itachi asked.

“Hey, half the time you turned out to be a shadow clone because you were skipping class, so I don’t think-”

“Why don’t you test your tag with a shadow clone?” Shisui interrupted, derailing the argument before it had the chance to start.

Iruka blinked. “Oh yeah. I guess I could.” He felt stupid for not having realized it before. He’d started modifying tags before he had the chakra control to make something like a shadow clone, and for some reason it had just never occurred to him that he could use them as part of the testing process. He quickly did just that, his shadow clone staring back at him before slowly lifting one eyebrow as if to say  _ how did you not think of this sooner? _ “Shut up,” Iruka hissed, handing the tag to his shadow-double. “Go test this.” 

“Sure,” his duplicate said, taking the tag and eyeing it. “Nice work. Don’t you think you should have anchored the second kanji in a different point, though?”

Iruka sighed. “Too late for that, just go try it out.”

Iruka-clone rolled his eyes at him. “If you insist.” He marched across the open training field.

Behind him Shisui and Itachi were still watching. He turned to glance at them. “You’re still watching?”

“I’m curious,” Shisui replied. 

“Me too,” Itachi echoed. 

Iruka shrugged, turning back around to watch Iruka-clone set a small barrier around the tag. 

“Why is he still setting the barrier?” Shisui asked.

“If it explodes too hard, he might dissipate before I get to see any effects of the irritant,” Iruka explained.

“I see,” Shisui nodded, humming thoughtfully. “I forgot this wasn’t designed as a combat tag.”

Iruka shifted back so he was standing between Shisui and Itachi again, the three of them watching Iruka-clone set the tag in the center of the clearing before activating the barrier. The tag let out a muffled  _ whumph _ sound a moment later, but didn’t appear to be a particularly strong explosion. Good. That meant the irritant would be more concentrated in the area around the tag. Clone-Iruka released the barrier, then wandered into the field. He exited a few seconds later, moving awkwardly, wandering back towards them, though he stopped a short distance away. His eyes were red. “I think it got into my eyes even though I kept them shut in there,” he noted. “It burns pretty bad, I didn’t inhale but I bet it would hurt pretty bad if I had.” He lifted a sleeve, showing off the small welts starting to form across his skin. “It itches  _ real bad. _ I kind of wish I could knock myself out right now. You might have made it  _ too _ itchy.”

Iruka nodded. “Okay, I may need to add another kanji to the tag, then.”

“Maybe go with a weaker alignment, but keep the same kanji,” Iruka-clone suggested, grimacing as he rubbed his sleeve up-and-down in a futile attempt to not scratch his arm. “I don’t know, it’s hard to concentrate.”

Iruka dug into his pack, tossing his clone the lotion he’d brought. “Try this.”

Iruka-clone caught the lotion and poured some on the tips of his fingers, gently massaging it into the skin of his forearm. “Oh. Yeah, that helps.” Next, he patted the lotion onto his cheeks, which were also developing red welts at this point. “Yeah. Not that it gets rid of the itching completely, but definitely better than nothing.”

Shisui took a half-step forward. “Do you think you’d be able to cast a genjutsu with the itching?”

Iruka-clone snorted derisively. “I don’t know, I’m pretty bad at that stuff  _ without _ the itching, much less with it.”

Shisui’s eyes darted across the clearing to where the itch-smoke was dissipating. A swift motion later, and he had a shadow clone of his own darting across the field in the direction of what remained of the irritant. After about thirty seconds, Shisui’s clone loped back across the field towards them. “It’s definitely dissipated,” he announced upon arrival, “but it appears to remain effective even at a lower concentration.” 

Shisui nodded. “Anything of note?”

“Definitely less than ideal conditions for combat,” Shisui-clone said, “But the risk of spreading the contaminant seems too risky.”

“Good point,” Shisui nodded. “More of a deterrent than a combat measure, then.”

Shisui’s clone nodded, then glanced at Iruka’s clone. “Can I borrow some of that?” he indicated the lotion. 

Iruka’s clone handed him the bottle. “A little goes a long way,” he told the Jonin’s clone.

“Noted,” Shisui’s clone said, patting some of the lotion on his own skin. “Huh. That is pretty soothing.” 

Iruka’s clone nodded, extending his hands in a  _ gimme _ gesture. “Can I have that back, now?”

Iruka sighed suddenly. “I just realized you guys probably contaminated the bottle, too. I guess I’ll need to carry that in a separate container.” He turned to rummage through his bag for something to hold it. 

“Here,” Itachi handed Iruka a bag that had a waterproofed interior. “You could put the bottle in here.” 

“Thanks,” Iruka took the bag. “I’ll get this back to you at training.” 

“You’re welcome. Thank you for letting us watch you work,” Itachi replied matter-of-factly. 

Shisui grinned at Itachi. “Ready to spar, now?”

Itachi nodded seriously. “Always.”

“Right.” Shisui made a swift gesture, dissipating his clone. “It was nice meeting you, Iruka. If I have any ideas for tag modifications, do you mind if I come ask you about them?”

Iruka blinked in surprise before slowly shaking his head. “No… I mean, if you want me to actually make them, you’ll have to buy the supplies yourself since testing can get pricey, but -”

“Great!” Shisui interrupted. “If I think of something, I’ll be sure to bring it to you. Thanks.”

Iruka blinked. “You’re… uh… welcome?”

Shisui kept grinning as he turned to Itachi again. “Race you to our usual training ground.”

Itachi’s serious face brightened into that adorable hint-of-a-smile Iruka only saw occasionally. “Okay.”

“Bye… guys…” Iruka finished weakly, realizing the two were gone before he could finish his sentence. He turned to look at his clone, who was holding the lotion bottle out in front of him. 

“Geniuses,” Iruka-clone said with a snort and an eyeroll. 

Iruka held out the bag and his clone dropped the lotion inside. “I guess I should dissipate you now,” he said, gazing at the clone. 

“Please do,” Iruka-clone said. “The itching  _ really _ isn’t getting any better.”

Iruka closed the bag cautiously, then dissipated his clone, the memories converging with his a moment later. “Oh,” he said, “That really  _ did _ itch a lot.” He grinned, pulling out the two remaining sheets of chakra paper. It seemed like he would end up taking two 'itchy' tags back with him after all.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is another one of those "huh, that wasn't in my outline but I do like it" fics. Hopefully we'll get into more action soon, I guess i just needed to establish a baseline of skill and relationship between these characters BEFORE they start dealing with action.  
> Also. Shisui is 13 in this fic because Naruto Timelines make no sense, so I just gave him an age that I liked. He's 6 years older than Itachi and 1 year older than Iruka. Do with this knowledge what you will.


End file.
